1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:28,520 How can it be that this man has seen a sight that shouldn't exist, the fabulous canals 2 00:00:28,520 --> 00:00:38,840 of Mars? Can this crater on the dark side of the moon explain a mystery handwritten 3 00:00:38,840 --> 00:00:46,480 in this book eight centuries ago? Does this glass plate hold the secret of the lost planet 4 00:00:46,480 --> 00:00:54,480 Vulcan? And can this computer crack the oldest astronomical riddle of all, what was the star 5 00:00:54,480 --> 00:01:03,000 of Bethlehem? Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clark, author of 2001 and inventor 6 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:08,160 of the communication satellite. Now in retreat in Sri Lanka, after a lifetime of science, 7 00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:13,920 space and writing, he ponders the riddles of this and other worlds. 8 00:01:13,920 --> 00:01:19,480 History is the oldest of the sciences. Since time immemorial, men have looked up at the 9 00:01:19,480 --> 00:01:28,240 starry skies and tried to unravel their secrets. Even now, our giant telescopes are discovering 10 00:01:28,240 --> 00:01:36,080 new and baffling phenomena at the very edge of the visible universe. I sometimes think 11 00:01:36,080 --> 00:01:46,920 that the universe is a machine designed for the perpetual astonishment of astronomers. 12 00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:53,200 Beside the new discoveries, there are also several classical astronomical mysteries, 13 00:01:53,200 --> 00:02:18,280 as even now, intrigue and baffle scientists. 14 00:02:23,200 --> 00:02:52,840 Dr. Peter Boyce is on his way to the birthplace of the 15 00:02:52,840 --> 00:03:06,560 astronomical world's most sensational story. This is Mars Hill, where the drama of the 16 00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:20,840 canals of Mars was nurtured and disseminated to an astonished world. It was 1894 when 17 00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:26,680 construction began here on an observatory. It had been specially commissioned by Percival 18 00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:35,960 Lowell, a Boston millionaire who developed a passionate taste for astronomy. These maps, 19 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:41,280 which Lowell believed showed canals on the planet Mars, were drawn a few years earlier 20 00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:48,560 by an Italian astronomer Giovanni Ciapparelli. They inspired in Lowell a lifelong obsession. 21 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:52,920 He built his own observatory in the clear and steady air above the wild west town of 22 00:03:52,920 --> 00:04:01,360 Flagstaff in Arizona. His aim to be ready for the close approach of Mars to the Earth due 23 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:10,000 in the autumn of 1894. Peter Boyce, an executive of the American Astronomical Society, has 24 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:28,280 come to Mars Hill because he, like Lowell, had an odd vision of Mars. In October 1894, 25 00:04:28,280 --> 00:04:35,160 Percival Lowell settled down to await his encounter with the Red Planet. Night after night, Lowell 26 00:04:35,160 --> 00:04:42,680 and his assistants at the telescope here sat and made drawing after drawing of the markings 27 00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:49,020 that they saw on the surface of the planet. They saw the broad, dark markings that everybody 28 00:04:49,020 --> 00:04:57,100 at that time saw. But in addition, they saw these marvelous, long, straight, thin lines 29 00:04:57,100 --> 00:05:03,040 that Lowell called canals. We have a series of drawings made by Lowell and a number of 30 00:05:03,040 --> 00:05:12,160 his associates which show these, very definitely show a number of these canals and the notation 31 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:18,680 saw no end of canals. In fact, so many could not single them out enough to draw them. Lowell 32 00:05:18,680 --> 00:05:24,800 constructed globes to show the canals he saw. There were dark blobs too. These he called 33 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:33,000 Oasis. In later years, his maps became even more intricate with all the canals named. 34 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:37,280 And he was fascinated by the way the canals seemed to grow from the polar ice caps each 35 00:05:37,280 --> 00:05:43,400 Martian summer. Lowell evolved the grandest and most romantic of theories. The canals 36 00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:49,440 were built by Martians to channel water from the ice caps because their planet was drying 37 00:05:49,440 --> 00:05:57,240 up. The Martians were battling to stave off inevitable doom. Soon Mars mania was everywhere. 38 00:05:57,240 --> 00:06:08,680 The newspapers vied with one another for the most realistic view of life on Mars. And this 39 00:06:08,680 --> 00:06:17,000 is from a serious book on astronomy. In this desperate battle for life, signals from the 40 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:21,800 Martians were supposedly detected. From the changing shadows of the planet's surface, 41 00:06:21,800 --> 00:06:29,080 an interplanetary morse code of dots and dashes. Lowell proclaimed that the earth likewise 42 00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:37,200 was doomed to die from drought. His own death came as the canal craze declined, but the 43 00:06:37,200 --> 00:06:49,760 idea was never quite buried. In 1964, the moment of truth with a space probe destination 44 00:06:49,880 --> 00:07:03,840 Mars. It found a desolate and lifeless planet, not a trace of canals. Yet Lowell's lines 45 00:07:03,840 --> 00:07:09,680 are still occasionally glimpsed. One night in 1971, Peter Boyce was observing Mars through 46 00:07:09,680 --> 00:07:17,280 the Cerro Tololo telescope in Chile. On that night, the amount of detail that was visible 47 00:07:17,320 --> 00:07:24,080 on the surface of Mars was just incredible. The big dark marking, Cerus Major, was darker 48 00:07:24,080 --> 00:07:31,440 than I've ever seen it before. It looked like the black pit of hell. I saw many of the oases 49 00:07:31,440 --> 00:07:38,160 all over the surface of the planet. You could see these small dark markings. I saw at least 50 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:45,800 one of the canals that I recognized, the Thoth Canal, was extremely visible. Without question, 51 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:51,760 it was there. It was standing out. I have to conclude that there is something on the 52 00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:59,760 surface of the planet and that Lowell was indeed actually seeing something that was there. 53 00:07:59,760 --> 00:08:06,640 Whether or not it was a series of dots or this network of fine lines as he actually 54 00:08:06,640 --> 00:08:11,880 drew it, I think it must be one of the mysteries that remains. 55 00:08:11,960 --> 00:08:16,320 We're repeating experiment here that was conducted at the turn of the century to try and settle 56 00:08:16,320 --> 00:08:22,320 this question. What we have on the blackboard is a rather conventionalized drawing of Mars 57 00:08:22,320 --> 00:08:28,880 showing the dark and light areas that everybody agrees exists, but no canals, no linear features. 58 00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:34,600 These girls don't know what they're drawing. They haven't seen that in close-up. And we've 59 00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:39,720 asked them to draw exactly what it is they see and we're waiting to see what the result 60 00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:41,720 of this experiment is. 61 00:08:47,720 --> 00:08:53,040 This experiment carried out in Trinkumaly, Sri Lanka, some 80 years after it was first 62 00:08:53,040 --> 00:09:00,880 done in England, shows very clearly that the human eye has a tendency to link up patterns, 63 00:09:00,880 --> 00:09:07,080 to create patterns where they don't exist. And some of these drawings are pretty much 64 00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:15,280 like Laos. I wouldn't hear very thin lines. You aren't on the original drawing at all. 65 00:09:15,280 --> 00:09:23,280 And symmetrical patterns, again nothing like the original object. So I'm sure what happened 66 00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:29,160 in the case of Laos was that his eye linked together the various dots and smudges on 67 00:09:29,160 --> 00:09:35,520 Mars and saw this grid work of lines which looked so artificial and which we now know 68 00:09:35,520 --> 00:09:37,520 is not there at all. 69 00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:44,520 The canals of Mars aren't the only thing to have gone missing in the history of astronomy. 70 00:09:44,520 --> 00:09:50,520 A whole planet has disappeared. It was in central France that in a classic confrontation, 71 00:09:50,520 --> 00:09:55,960 the planet Balkan was born. Now Richard Baum, an English astronomer, has come to the village 72 00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:58,960 of Orgère to investigate its death. 73 00:09:59,400 --> 00:10:06,400 Central characters in the drama were Edmund Lascarbeau, a country doctor who loved astronomy, 74 00:10:06,400 --> 00:10:11,900 his adversary, the celebrated Professor Laverrier, honored by King Louis Philippe for predicting 75 00:10:11,900 --> 00:10:17,480 the discovery of Neptune. Their meeting, which was for a time to make Orgère internationally 76 00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:22,400 famous, grew out of strange irregularities in the orbit of the planet Mercury, which 77 00:10:22,400 --> 00:10:27,480 was disobeying Newton's laws of physics. Professor Laverrier proposed this was due 78 00:10:27,520 --> 00:10:36,520 to the pull of an unknown planet between Mercury and the Sun. And one afternoon in 1859, Dr. 79 00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:42,720 Lascarbeau thought he saw it in the skies above Orgère. He was in his observatory studying 80 00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:48,720 the Sun when he saw a small black spot move onto its face. It took four hours to cross 81 00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:56,320 the Sun. When Laverrier heard about this, he caught the first train from Paris and marched 82 00:10:56,360 --> 00:11:05,360 the 12 miles from the station to Lascarbeau's door. Now when Laverrier came up to the door, 83 00:11:05,560 --> 00:11:12,080 he rapped rather imperiously on it. He was, by all accounts, a rather arrogant, haughty, 84 00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:16,920 stiff sort of character, who had little time for his subordinates. Anyhow, the door was 85 00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:23,920 shortly opened by a very small, meek, somewhat self-effacing fellow, Dr. Lascarbeau himself. 86 00:11:24,920 --> 00:11:30,920 Without introducing himself, Laverrier said, It is you, sir, who claims to have seen or 87 00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:36,920 discovered the intramacorial planet. I warn you, sir, I have come to either unask you 88 00:11:36,920 --> 00:11:42,080 as an imposter or to prove you as the true discoverer of this object. He then asked to 89 00:11:42,080 --> 00:11:49,080 see LaScarbeau's calculations, because LaScarbeau had mentioned something about the distance 90 00:11:49,520 --> 00:11:56,520 of the planet from the Sun. And this proved to be almost farcical in its way, because LaScarbeau 91 00:11:56,720 --> 00:12:02,200 admitted to being rather a poor man, and he could scarcely afford to buy paper, so that 92 00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:08,200 therefore he was used to doing his calculations on pieces of wood, and to erase them, of course, 93 00:12:08,200 --> 00:12:14,240 simply to plane them off, which was rather economic, I suppose. Well, this seemed to 94 00:12:14,320 --> 00:12:21,320 upset Laverrier altogether. But somehow, there was something about the way in which LaScarbeau 95 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:27,120 recounted his experience, which convinced him, at least, that here was an honest man, and 96 00:12:27,120 --> 00:12:33,120 that the observation had been genuinely made. Accordingly, he named the new object, which 97 00:12:33,120 --> 00:12:38,120 astounded the world because of its major importance, Vulcan. 98 00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:44,120 Yet from the start, Vulcan had a question mark hanging over it. Some amateurs saw it, 99 00:12:44,320 --> 00:12:49,720 like this American railway engineer who wrote, a small boy asked me what was the matter with 100 00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:56,720 the Sun. On looking at it, I saw a planet. But no professional observed it until 1878, 101 00:12:56,960 --> 00:13:02,400 time of a great eclipse in the United States. Professor James Craig Watson's party stationed 102 00:13:02,400 --> 00:13:08,840 themselves at separation in Wyoming. During totality, he spotted an unknown object near 103 00:13:08,880 --> 00:13:14,880 a known star, so did one of his colleagues in Colorado. But Vulcan has never been seen 104 00:13:14,880 --> 00:13:21,880 again. Vulcan officially died in 1915 with the publication 105 00:13:23,120 --> 00:13:30,120 of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. His concept of gravitation predicted that 106 00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:38,360 Mercury would move exactly in the way it was being observed to move. Very simply because 107 00:13:38,360 --> 00:13:45,200 Albert Einstein predicted that bodies moving in a high gravitational field would move somewhat 108 00:13:45,200 --> 00:13:51,800 differently to that predicted by Isaac Newton's Theory of Gravitation. So accordingly, with 109 00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:58,800 the publication of his theory in 1915, Vulcan officially died and the search for the Holy 110 00:13:59,240 --> 00:14:06,000 Grail, so to speak, in the skies died. But has it been buried? Dr. Henry Corton of Dowling 111 00:14:06,040 --> 00:14:11,000 College on Long Island, New York, has with Professor Don Albert taken ultra-high-powered 112 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:18,000 photographs of the Sun during eclipses. Among the familiar stars on the negative plates, 113 00:14:18,240 --> 00:14:23,400 they've discovered what they think are objects a few miles across swirling around the Sun. 114 00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:30,400 The objects occupy essentially the same position in the sky relative to the Sun that the early 115 00:14:31,280 --> 00:14:38,280 reports of Vulcan did record. Vulcan perhaps did exist. And then you have to explain what 116 00:14:38,680 --> 00:14:45,680 happened to it. Why don't we see Vulcan anymore? And things just don't fly off, but they 117 00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:53,360 could disintegrate. And being so close to the Sun, it would experience strong gravitational 118 00:14:53,360 --> 00:14:59,160 forces and perhaps did not survive and now is in smaller fragments in that vicinity. 119 00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:04,440 There was an object. It was observed by a number of people and recorded in the proper 120 00:15:04,440 --> 00:15:10,720 position. And here we are on the order of a hundred years later finding a bunch of debris 121 00:15:10,720 --> 00:15:17,720 in the area. It seems a straightforward conclusion to make that the two are directly related. 122 00:15:17,760 --> 00:15:20,760 We're looking at the leftovers of Vulcan. 123 00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:27,760 A different kind of celestial conundrum lies in the library built by Sir Christopher 124 00:15:28,200 --> 00:15:35,200 Ren at Trinity College in Cambridge. It's in the Chronicle of Gervais, a book written 125 00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:42,960 in the 12th century by a monk from Canterbury. Jack Hartung, an American space scientist, 126 00:15:42,960 --> 00:15:47,440 discovered that on one page was a mysterious report handwritten eight centuries ago in 127 00:15:47,440 --> 00:15:49,800 Latin. 128 00:15:49,800 --> 00:15:55,800 What this says when translated into English is that on a particular evening in the year 129 00:15:55,840 --> 00:16:02,840 1778, June 18th, to be exact, there were at least five men sitting and observing a new 130 00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:09,340 moon and just after sunset the new moon was visible and they observed that the upper 131 00:16:09,340 --> 00:16:15,600 horn of a new moon, the upper horn is the language that's used in the text, split. 132 00:16:15,600 --> 00:16:22,600 And from this division point came fire, hot coals and sparks. Quite a remarkable thing 133 00:16:22,680 --> 00:16:29,680 to observe, I think. And the text goes on to say that this moon, which they saw, writhed 134 00:16:33,280 --> 00:16:39,880 as if it were a wounded snake. 135 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:42,680 Hartung followed the trail back to Kent. 136 00:16:42,680 --> 00:16:49,680 The moon this evening looks much as it must have looked on that evening, June 18th, 1178, 137 00:16:49,760 --> 00:16:56,760 some 802 years ago. It's a very thin crescent appearing above the western horizon just after 138 00:16:56,760 --> 00:16:58,680 sunset. 139 00:16:58,680 --> 00:17:03,320 The fact that it was a new moon recorded in the chronicle gave Hartung his clue. 140 00:17:03,320 --> 00:17:10,320 The midpoint of the upper horn of a new moon corresponds to a latitude of 45 degrees north. 141 00:17:10,840 --> 00:17:17,840 The new moon itself indicates that the longitude of the site of such an event was 90 degrees 142 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:24,980 east. From that we can predict that there should be something observable on the surface 143 00:17:24,980 --> 00:17:31,280 of the moon, some scar to represent what actually happened that evening. 144 00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:35,960 From the earth nothing is now visible. But wondered Hartung, could the witnesses have 145 00:17:35,960 --> 00:17:40,880 seen the effects of something out of sight, just over the rim on the dark side of the 146 00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:42,920 moon? 147 00:17:42,920 --> 00:17:47,560 And in just the right place on pictures taken by orbiting spacecraft he found this meteor 148 00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:52,600 13 miles across named Giordano Bruno. 149 00:17:52,600 --> 00:17:59,600 Most significant the network of bright rays told Hartung the impact was fresh. 150 00:18:00,760 --> 00:18:06,240 He's convinced this is the explanation of Gervais' story, a unique sighting. 151 00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:11,480 So those five men who witnessed the formation of Giordano Bruno on that evening of June 152 00:18:11,480 --> 00:18:18,480 18th in 1178 are almost certainly the only five men in recorded history to have observed 153 00:18:19,520 --> 00:18:23,680 such a significant fantastic event. 154 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:29,000 I think we should take this observation seriously because after all there were many tremendous 155 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:33,240 meteor impacts on the moon in the remote past. 156 00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:38,400 This is a mystery which we'll solve one day when we go back to the moon and explore it 157 00:18:38,440 --> 00:18:41,560 thoroughly. 158 00:18:41,560 --> 00:18:47,560 There are almost too many possible answers to the other classic astronomical mystery, 159 00:18:47,560 --> 00:18:54,560 what was the star at Bethlehem? 160 00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:59,360 After seeing the star in the east, according to St. Matthew, the wise men journeyed to 161 00:18:59,360 --> 00:19:01,880 Jerusalem. 162 00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:08,360 The star went before them and stood over where the young child was in Bethlehem. 163 00:19:12,360 --> 00:19:18,520 The star is now a central image of Christmas. 164 00:19:18,520 --> 00:19:21,320 But was it a miracle or a myth? 165 00:19:21,320 --> 00:19:28,320 Could it have been a real astronomical event? 166 00:19:29,320 --> 00:19:34,320 Chinese writings drawn up 2,000 years ago suggested one answer to astronomer Dr. Richard 167 00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:40,760 Stevenson. There were star records made for the emperors of China. Scholars think that 168 00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:45,480 Christ was born sometime between 8 and 4 BC. 169 00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:52,480 What I did was to cover about the range from about 10 BC to 10 AD and see whether there 170 00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:59,720 were any new stars. Since a star seems to be the most obvious interpretation, visible 171 00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:04,600 around this period. 172 00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:09,480 And there in the Chenping period, 5 BC was an unusual entry. 173 00:20:09,480 --> 00:20:16,480 Here this is what it says. In the second year of the rain period, second month, this is 174 00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:24,480 a lunar month, so this is about March to April. A Huixing, that's normally a broom star, 175 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:32,880 or a common, appeared. And it gives the little constellation in which it occurred that's 176 00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:40,240 in Chenyu. And it says, furthermore, it was visible for more than 70 days. 177 00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:46,680 Stevenson believes the account refers not to a comment, which moves quite quickly across 178 00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:53,680 the sky, but to a nova, or exploding star, since the Chinese scribes mentioned no movement. 179 00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:58,760 But a rival theory has it that the Maidji were astrologers, and that the star was a 180 00:20:58,760 --> 00:21:02,440 symbolic coming together of planets. 181 00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:08,440 Dr. David Hughes has programmed a computer to recreate the night sky as it was 2,000 182 00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:09,840 years ago. 183 00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:16,840 My theory is that the star of Bethlehem was Jupiter, and the event that Jupiter was in 184 00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:23,920 at the time was a coming together with Saturn, another planet in the constellation of Pisces. 185 00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:31,320 Here you see the stars in Pisces, and these stars represent the tails of the two fishes. 186 00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:37,600 When anything happens in here, when any planets start to move around, the astrologers in those 187 00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:43,200 days would automatically connect to this movement with events that were occurring in Palestine. 188 00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:47,240 The Earth's movement around the sun makes Saturn and Jupiter appear to move strangely 189 00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:53,440 in the sky. Just once, every 805 years, this causes what's known as a triple conjunction 190 00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:56,680 in Pisces. This happened in 7 BC. 191 00:21:56,680 --> 00:22:03,680 The planet Saturn is the one of, astrologically, the planet of the god, and Jupiter is the 192 00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:07,040 planet of the new Messiah. 193 00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:12,120 And what is happening in 7 BC is we're getting a coming together of these two planets, which 194 00:22:12,120 --> 00:22:19,120 is indicating that the rule of that land is being transferred from the god to the new 195 00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:20,400 Messiah. 196 00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:25,960 Here we have the date, and Saturn moving into the frame first of all. 197 00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:30,600 Here we have Jupiter following Saturn, and of course as the date changes you can see 198 00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:37,600 them moving across the screen, and you get, on the 29th of May in 7 BC, the first conjunction 199 00:22:40,080 --> 00:22:43,000 where the two planets come close together. 200 00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:46,320 The wise men would have been convinced at this time that something really important was 201 00:22:46,320 --> 00:22:53,320 happening in Palestine, and that the ruler of the Jews, the new ruler of the Jews, is 202 00:22:54,800 --> 00:22:55,840 going to come. 203 00:22:55,960 --> 00:23:02,960 Continue, and you will now see the date moving, the planets move apart, and will then come 204 00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:09,480 together again in September, and this will be the second conjunction. 205 00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:13,000 And during that time between May and September, the major eye would have been moving from 206 00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:19,080 Babylon across the desert, and would be continually looking at these stars in the sky with the 207 00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:21,160 planets moving among them. 208 00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:26,280 These two coming together would be reinforcing their predictions. 209 00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:31,720 Now we can continue on to the third conjunction, and you will notice that again as time progresses 210 00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:37,040 the two planets move slightly apart, and then in December will come together again for the 211 00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:42,000 third time, and here on the 4th of December we have them again separated by about one 212 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:44,120 degree. 213 00:23:44,120 --> 00:23:49,000 Hughes believes that just before this third conjunction the wise men saw Herod, and that 214 00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:52,080 his priests said the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. 215 00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:57,240 Now of course the interesting thing here is that you are really dealing all the time with 216 00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:04,240 two very normal planets moving against a very normal constellation, and the astrologers, 217 00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:09,560 the wise men of Babylon would have regarded this as very significant, but Herod and the 218 00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:15,680 man in the street would have just thought two planets moving, and Herod was very surprised 219 00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:20,560 when the major eye came to him and said, we have seen his star in the east, where is 220 00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:24,120 this new Messiah? 221 00:24:24,120 --> 00:24:31,120 Such a celestial line-up is of no particular astronomical importance, but it may have been 222 00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:36,840 of great significance to the astrologers who thirst in those days, as unfortunately they 223 00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:39,840 still do. 224 00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:45,040 For a serious astronomical explanation of the star of Bethlehem, well my favorite theory 225 00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:52,040 is that it was a supernova. Occasionally a star may explode with a violence so great 226 00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:59,240 that for a few weeks it outshines all the other stars in the sky. No human eye has seen 227 00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:02,080 such a thing for 350 years. 228 00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:09,080 The next supernova is rather overdue. As its furies fade, a supernova may become a pulsar, 229 00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:15,640 a tiny star emitting immensely powerful radio waves. Now as it happens, quite recently a 230 00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:22,640 pulsar has been located with the rather glamorous name of PSR 1913 plus 16B has been discovered, 231 00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:30,680 which seems to fit the specifications of the star of Bethlehem. 232 00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:37,680 Herod-Lomantic, if even now we can hear the dying voice of the star of Bethlehem. 233 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:46,080 The star which heralded the Christian era. 234 00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:16,080 Next week the end of our journey through the mysterious world.